wsbt.com/news/wsbt-questions-swirl-around-6-billion-nuclear-lab-20111204,0,6799557.story

wsbt.com

Questions swirl around $6 billion nuclear lab

Questions swirl around $6 billion nuclear lab

12:44 PM EST, December 4, 2011

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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — At Los Alamos National Laboratory, officials are moving forward with final design and initial construction plans for a new $6 billion nuclear lab. But questions continue to swirl about exactly what kind of nuclear and plutonium research will be done there, whether the lab is really necessary, and — perhaps most important — will it be safe, or could it become New Mexico's equivalent of Japan's Fukushima?

Increased scrutiny is being placed on what in recent years has been discovered to be a greater potential for a major earthquake along the fault lines that run under the lab. Lab officials say the new nuclear facility has been redesigned to withstand a worst-case scenario. But at a recent oversight hearing, earthquake danger at lab buildings was front and center.